Of Astora
by MrMosquito22
Summary: The story of a lost Undead whose only solace comes from an old pendant, but will it be enough to survive the Land of Ancient Lords, Lordran? -Long time reader, first time writer, please be kind, hope you enjoy the story-
1. prologue

_Porlouge_

_In the Age of Ancients,__  
__The world was unformed, shrouded by fog__  
__A land of grey crags, archtrees, and everlasting dragons_

_But then there was Fire__  
__And with Fire came Disparity. Heat and cold, life and death, and of course.. Light and Dark._

_Then, from the Dark, They came__  
__And found the Souls of Lords within the flame._

_Nito, the first of the dead__  
__The Witch of Izalith, and her daughters of chaos__  
__Gwyn, the Lord of Sunlight, and his faithful knights__  
__And the furtive pygmy, so easily forgotten_

_With the Strength of Lords, they challenged the dragons._

_Gwyn's mighty bolts peeled apart their stone scales__  
__The witches weaved great firestorms__  
__Nito unleashed a miasma of death and disease_

_And Seath the Scaleless betrayed his own, and the dragons were no more____  
__Thus began the Age of Fire_

_But soon, the flames will fade, and only Dark will remain _

_Even now, there are only embers, and man sees not light, but only endless nights__  
__And amongst the living are seen, carriers of the accursed Darksign._

_Yes indeed._

_The Darksign brands the Undead. _

_And in this land, the Undead are corralled and lead to the north, _

_where they are locked away to await the end of the world. _

_This is the fate of the Undead. _

_This is where this story begins._


	2. The Cell

The Cell

At the end of the corridor, there was a cell, no different from any other that the Asylum had to offer. Inside, there sat a man, an Undead. He sat near the corner of the small cell with his back placed against the stone wall with his right arm resting on his raised knee. His head hung there starring into his right hand which held a small, silver pendant held by a gold chain. The face of the pendant was weathered to the point to where whatever was engraved upon it had long been rendered unreadable.

He was Undead. His eyes were but empty sockets, his hair had withered and had fallen from his head, and his skin was like that of parchment; upon his heart and in his soul he was branded with the accursed Darksign. It started at his heart and spread across the whole of his left breast. It crept like the roots of some parasitic plant, slowly draining the life from him.

The ground upon which he sat was frigid and made his paper thin skin grow numb. He made no effort to alleviate the pain, for he was lost in thoughts and asked himself questions that made him oblivious to the pain he felt.

Who am I?

How long have I been here?

What sins have I committed to be sent to this forsaken place?

When will I leave?

Will I leave?

Who am I?

These thoughts raced in circles in his mind. They came and went as they pleased; appearing as alive as fire one instant and dying as embers the next, only to be rekindled again in a continuous cycle. A new thought had come, or at least a thought that spent a long time coming back around:

Why am I holding this pendant?

Like all other questions that he held, this was one he could not answer.

Should I drop it?

He tried to command his hand to drop the pendant, but his limbs would not abide him. The pendant was dear to him. He couldn't leave it. As he looked and thought of the pendant, his thoughts slowed, and he felt a sense of familiarity and a pang of nostalgia. He knew not why, but it mattered little to him, anything that gave him a brief respite from his current state was a welcome change.

He sat, letting these familiar unfamiliar feelings wash over him like a wave while hours passed by, or was it minutes? Or years? Or centuries? It didn't matter, but what did matter is what happened next.

A loud crash was heard. It echoed through the halls of the asylum. The Undead looked up from his pendant for the first time in lords know how long and found a new sight in his cell: a corpse. It had fallen from the top of his cell. He looked up to find a large opening in the top of his cell. Sunlight streamed down from the sky beyond his cell.

Had that always been there?

Have I ever tried to scale the walls to escape?

Was I too weak to reach it?

Did I feel pain when I fell?

These questions would receive no answers. As he peered upward, a shape appeared and obscured the sun's rays. The figure was dark, but the Undead felt the same unfamiliar familiarity from the shape as he did the pendant. He raised his arm to shade his eyes. Pain shot through him with every inch of movement.

How long have I sat here?

As he looked up, the shape became more describable. It was an Undead, however his face was concealed by the faceplate of the knightly helm he wore. It was of steel make and the top gleamed in the sun. The rest of his body was covered in the same gleaming steel, with the exception of a leather gauntlet on his right hand, and a blue waist coat that covered the chest plate with a auburn wrap around his neck. Though he couldn't tell through the faceplate, the Undead could feel the eyes of the knight staring back at him. The knight then, like the fleeting thoughts of the Undead, was gone in an instant.

As odd as that encounter was, the Undead had no time to dwell upon it, for he had a new cellmate to attend to. The corpse was that of a Hollow, an Undead whose humanity was lost, and on its person was a rusted iron key. The Undead tried to pull himself from off the ground. As his legs began to fail him, his hand grabbed a dangling chain in the cell for support. He could feel the skin of his hand begin to be ripped from his bones. He ignored the pain and use what little strength he had to stand on his own.

With his balance returned, the Undead slowly but surely approached the Hollow. He carefully knelt down and grasped the key feebly in his hands. He then looked to the door of his cell and began to go towards it. He went to place the key into the lock but it fell from his still weak hands. It dropped to the floor with an echoing clang. More thoughts rushed in his head.

Why am I doing this?

Who was that knight?

What is his purpose?

Why did he free me?

There may be no answers, but one must forge ahead. The Undead steeled himself, raised the key off of the cold floor and held it tightly. He placed the key into the lock and with what little strength he had, turned the key. He could feel the door unlatch and with one gentle push, the door to his cell was open.


End file.
